These are hard things to handle.

Helllooooo hello hello. 

It is I. 

Still in Palestine. 

The strange thing is balancing the seriousness of everything that's going on with the kinda interesting but more mundane things. Like - I ran a marathon. That's kinda cool. It was actually really fun and I'm gonna be running another one in October. 

On top of that, my dad visited me in Bethlehem for a bit, which was awesome. It was great to share everything and to have him and the people he travelled with learn more about what's going on from this side of the border wall. From that I really learned how passionate I am about advocating, and talking about all the complete insanity that's going on here. 

Like - a coworker of mine told me that their best friend was just kidnapped by the Israeli Defense Forces. They were taken out of their house at 5am, and are being held somewhere. This happens randomly to young and old people alike as a fear tactic. I asked my friend if they know anyone else this has happened to, and they said that it's happened to their brother and their father, and that their father was held for 3 years. Apparently when they're being held, there's torture involved. 

So what... What. What the hell. And what do you do; you just go to work. But she said that all of her time is spent trying to sleep or distract herself cuz what the hell else is she going to be thinking about. And how can that not drive her crazy. 

Man, stuff like this just makes you want to be apathetic. Or go crazy. Or get really, really angry. Honestly what other recourse is there. 

But the thing that blows. my mind. Is that despite the atrocities you always are hearing about, I actually feel safer in Palestine then in Canada.

In Canada, there’s homelessness and crime. You don’t always know about peoples' intentions and it makes you wary. But in the West Bank, I’m not afraid of the locals at all, you can trust the people around you, because you’re all in this together. There’s less crime, but there’s oppression; it’s a very different thing to fear. 

In Palestine, you’re not afraid of your neighbors, you’re afraid for the lives of your neighbors.

I talked to a foreigner living in Israel recently who said that they've thought of Palestine as like the wild west and were scared to enter, but I feel so much safer here than in Israel. Everyone's looking out for each other here; I've experienced more kindness, more patience, and more hospitality here than ever before. Maybe because they know how it feels to have their best friend kidnapped. 

Jeez man.

The fact that we have freedom to protest without endangering our lives. The fact we can go wherever the hell we want. That we have freedom to LEAVE if we don't like our country. 

I feel the stuff I'm learning here is really gonna stay with me.